2023-2024 General Game Thread

[LandoMa 0]

Bad turnovers by paolo and a few others. The Celtics made the extra pass and made a ton of 3s. Some wide open some contested. I think we can still win Sundays battle. Nothing went well for us last night. 

[TrueMagicFan07 674]

10 hours ago, jmmagicfan said:

I’m not really sure why we don’t find AB more in the offense. He seems to make the right cut or the shot. His shot looks okay. He’s over 50% from the field. Yes, he’s 32% from 3, but it looks good most of the time, just slow getting it off. And he moves the ball well. I think other teams ignore him because we do on that end.

I see what you are saying, but maybe it's what the coaches see in practice. From my perspective, there is a vast difference between AB and from how I see above average point guards usually take command of the court. They are floor generals, game managers. Other teams have to try to follow the ball when it's in the hands of the floor general (point guard). At times he is going to make a hard drive in the paint to make a layup--the way Kelle does--or dump the ball off to a teammate, who is close by, to put the ball in the basket. By driving hard into the paint he can draw some fouls. I have'nt seen AB do any of that.

I'm not campaigning for Kelle,  but we have no other choice right now and have to use AB in the starting role because Cole is more effective coming off the bench with the second unit. Cole is our second unit floor general who does all the things I mentioned above that a floor general should be capable of doing.

[MagicMan1979 105]

11 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

(after about 2 mins left in the third quarter I just skipped ahead to see if we ever got close)

What a horrible performance. Rested against a team down several rotation players on a back to back and we **** the bed with terrible turnovers, stagnant offense and pretty average defensive intensity.

Paolo and Franz both did more harm than good. And sure some of that is they were being keyed in on defensively but some of the decisions they were making was baffling. Why the ***** are you calling for a screen with a random Boston 10th man on you when the screener is being guarded by Jaylen Brown? Paolo Banchero should see that he's being guarded by *****ing Sam Hauser and just go score. That's what stars do. (Also some of Paolo's defense was not good)

Goga was good offensively but that's no surprise given he matched up with 6'7 Lamar Stevens for a lot of the night. Defensively he shouldn't have been on the court. They put him in a screen with Tatum as the ball handler and a shooter as the screener over and over and cooked us. I'd have rather had literally anybody on the court defensively at that point. 

Man I wish Paolo could play the 5 at all defensively because we should have gone to it here but he's literally never looked at all like he understands or has willingness to play great defense when he's been asked to play the 5 in the NBA despite his summer at FIBA. 

I thought Anthony Black played as well as can be expected for a rookie who the opposing team can just ignore on offense. 

At this point I'm chalking up Sundays game as an L and hoping we bring it at home against the Heat. 

CT how many minutes has he played at center this season?  I can’t find it and know your good at finding these things. I think it works best when Isaac plays with him and they both are the center/ power forward. I know we closed some games like that earlier this year. It’s our line up of death! lol

[MagicMan1979 105]

15 hours ago, ball junkie said:

Franz down to 30.2 from 3 …and he takes the most on the team at 5 per game 

Paolo isn’t shooting it well either his last few (35.1% his last ten games).  He was hitting over 40% most of the early season. We need both stars to hit at least 35%-36%.  
 

Season Stats

Paolo 38.2%

Franz 30.2%

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

3 hours ago, MagicMan1979 said:

CT how many minutes has he played at center this season?  I can’t find it and know your good at finding these things. I think it works best when Isaac plays with him and they both are the center/ power forward. I know we closed some games like that earlier this year. It’s our line up of death! lol

Bballref has him at 56 mins played at C. 

[MagicMan1979 105]

39 minutes ago, CTMagicUK said:

Bballref has him at 56 mins played at C. 

That is a decent sample size. I think he could get better at it as he gets even stronger. But Paolo doesn’t have great length to play the  position for long stretches. Both forward positions might be it but he is still so young. 

[Albert Lergier 99]

Paolo with a total of 78 turnovers (3.3 PG) as of today ranks 8th worst in the league....Cade Cunningham is # 1 with 104.

If Markelle doesn't return soon I wouldn't be surprised if Cole is inserted in the starting line-up......sometimes you have to tweak things and I think Paolo and Franz, especially Paolo needs to freelance more and not handle the ball as much as he has been. Time will tell.

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

I'm really not confident about tonight's game. Celtics have Horford and Porzingis back and they cooked us on the second night of a back to back without those guys.

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

1 hour ago, Albert Lergier said:

Paolo with a total of 78 turnovers (3.3 PG) as of today ranks 8th worst in the league....Cade Cunningham is # 1 with 104.

If Markelle doesn't return soon I wouldn't be surprised if Cole is inserted in the starting line-up......sometimes you have to tweak things and I think Paolo and Franz, especially Paolo needs to freelance more and not handle the ball as much as he has been. Time will tell.

Conveniently leaving out that Numbers 2 to 7 are: Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Giannis, Embiid, Randle, Lebron.

Right behind him in the list are Tatum, Curry, Jokic, Durant. 

Paolo does turn the ball over too much on some nights. He needs to get better at cutting out those sloppy ones. But high volume offensive creators, the thing we want Paolo to be and are hoping he develops into one of the leagues best at, turn the ball over as a by product of the role. (With some incredible exceptions like prime CP3 and Tyrese Haliburton)

[MagicMan1979 105]

2 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

Conveniently leaving out that Numbers 2 to 7 are: Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Giannis, Embiid, Randle, Lebron.

Right behind him in the list are Tatum, Curry, Jokic, Durant. 

Paolo does turn the ball over too much on some nights. He needs to get better at cutting out those sloppy ones. But high volume offensive creators, the thing we want Paolo to be and are hoping he develops into one of the leagues best at, turn the ball over as a by product of the role. (With some incredible exceptions like prime CP3 and Tyrese Haliburton)

Very good post CT. Almost all high usage players have high turnovers. 
 

Paolo and Franz need a long leash to continue their development. They are so young and their overall games will continue to improve. This reminds me of when people thought Paolo shouldn’t shoot any threes because he was below 30% last year. The only way young guys get better is with reps. I encourage all fans to compare our two stars to current and past superstars in their second and third years. Both of our guys matchup well with a lot of Hall of Famers statistically.  They are far better than Taytum and Brown at the same age for example. KD in his second year had more turnovers than assists. 
 

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

Think I'm a little behind the live game, just finished first quarter, Paolo is COOKING.

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

I've got no idea what's happened to Franz' jumper but I'm getting concerned.